Jonathan Manthorpe: Al-Qaida groups foolish to draw Algeria into the Sahara war

Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun columnist01.22.2013

Damage at the Ain Amenas natural gas plant after Islamist gunmen attacked it and took hostages. The militants were wearing Algerian army uniforms and were equipped with explosives to blow up the plant, according to Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, who said Monday that at least 81 people died in the four-day operation by government forces to free the hostages.

The al-Qaida followers operating out of the Sahara may be evil and crafty, but their seizure of the Algerian natural gas centre at Ain Amenas suggests they are also dumb.

In the subsequent four-day siege by Algerian forces at the remote gas field, which left 29 gunmen and at least 37 foreign hostages dead, the al-Qaida factions have shown a serious strategic short-sightedness.

For months and, indeed, years, the international community and even regional governments have dithered and squabbled over how to respond as al-Qaida-linked groups established new havens in the wastes of the Sahara after being chased out of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.

Even the takeover of the vast desert regions of northern Mali by these groups, in the chaos following a military coup in the capital Bamako last March, failed to excite any sense of urgency.

Until the French government of President Francois Hollande last week decided enough was enough and launched its own military intervention on behalf of the Bamako regime, Mali’s neighbours were dreamily speculating they might be able to put together a military aid force sometimes later this year.

But the attack on Ain Amenas has cut through all that waffle and demonstrated, especially with the killings of foreign gas field workers, that the al-Qaida affiliates are a clear and present danger.

What may prove to be especially misguided was for the al-Qaida terrorists to launch their attack in Algeria, the dominant regional military and economic power.

Until the Ain Amenas attack, Algeria was very reluctant to get involved in dealing with the growing dominance of groups such as Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the associated Signed in Blood Battalion and the Ansar Dine group now ruling northern Mali with which Algeria shares a 2,000-kilometre border.

It had supplied some intelligence and logistical support, and allowed overflight of its territory, but not much else.

But with 20 years of experience of battling militant Islamic groups – AQIM was founded in Algeria – highly capable special forces, the best intelligence network in the region and well-established contacts with the many players on the Saharan stage that give it the ability to lever the fault lines between the various groups, the Algiers government is the indispensable partner in this conflict.

And the Ain Amenas attack has pushed Algeria off the fence and on to the front line.

In all probability, the Algiers government will now be more receptive to joining with neighbours and deploying more of its military and intelligence resources to root out the al-Qaida groups.

But even though Algeria has now been thrust into the middle of the war in the Sahara, the reasons for its previous reluctance to get deeply involved may foster a continuing reticence.

Algiers’ hesitancy has been driven by both ideological and practical considerations.

Algeria believes strongly in the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of neighbouring states, especially by non-African nations.

In the case of northern Mali, the adherence to that principle has, until now, overridden Algiers’ very serious concerns about the increasing domination of AQIM and associated groups in the Saharan Sahel region of central West Africa.

While the Algerian government strikes a hard line stance against hostage-takers, as has been clearly shown in the last few days, it also believes with reason that it understands the various players well enough to be able to sow discord among them.

Algiers believes that a concerted military intervention in the Sahara, especially by non-African troops, is most likely to unite the militant groups, encourage them to bury their differences and make them a tougher nut to crack.

Two strands have led to the al-Qaida capture of northern Mali and its growing presence in neighbouring Saharan states such as Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and northern Nigeria.

One is the civil war in Algeria which started in December 1991 when the army stepped in to prevent an election victory by the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front (ISF).

In the civil war that followed, in which perhaps as many as 200,000 people died, the ISF spawned several militant groups.

With the government forces victorious 10 years ago, the remaining militants announced their “blessed union” with al-Qaida, in 2006 adopted the AQIM name and continue to operate sporadically as a terrorist group in Algeria.

The second strand was the 2011 uprising against leader Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, Algeria’s eastern neighbour.

These are the native people of much of the western Sahara. After Gadhafi was ousted and killed, they returned home to northern Mali with ample supplies of weapons, and launched an independence war to create a Tuareg homeland of Azawad.

It was the irresolute response of the Bamako government to this uprising that led to the military coup in Mali last year.

The situation reached its present level when AQIM and other foreign al-Qaida followers hijacked the Tuareg separatist movement and imposed a brutally puritanical Islamic regime in northern Mali, including public executions and amputations for minor crimes.

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Jonathan Manthorpe: Al-Qaida groups foolish to draw Algeria into the Sahara war

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